Empirically derived five-factor DMQ structure separates anxiety and partially diverges from anxiety sensory constructs

In a 2025 study, Bain evaluated the dimensionality and item-level functioning of the DMQ by combining EFA/CFA across exploratory and validation samples with a multidimensional graded response model and regression-based validity analyses. They found that an empirically derived five-factor model (beliefs, coping, impairment, aversion, anxiety) retained all substantive items without cross-loadings and fit slightly better than the theoretically derived eight-factor model, with the scale providing most information at moderate-to-high misophonia severity and showing partial divergence from anxiety and sensory processing constructs. From this they concluded that the five-factor model offers a more parsimonious structure suited to screening and large-scale research, that the eight-factor model remains useful for granular symptom profiling, and that misophonia is conceptually distinct yet partially overlapping with related constructs (Bain et al., 2025).